Eco-Anxiety & Climate Grief: Supporting Clients in Coping with Climate Distress
Presented by
Dreya Blume, LCSWThis training will provide you with a comprehensive framework for understanding and addressing the emotional, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of climate-related distress.
Overview
2 CEs Recorded: Fall, 2025
As the realities of climate change grow more urgent, many clients are experiencing eco-anxiety, climate grief, and existential distress that can deeply impact their mental health. This training will provide you with a comprehensive framework for understanding and addressing the emotional, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of climate-related distress. Together, we will explore how to differentiate eco-anxiety from clinical anxiety, recognize common manifestations of climate grief, and learn therapeutic approaches that validate, contextualize, and help clients transform their distress into meaningful engagement.
This training combines theory, practical tools, and experiential exercises to build confidence in supporting clients facing climate-related emotions. Through case examples and reflective practices, you will develop strategies for helping clients move from overwhelm to agency, integrate eco-emotions into a broader healing process, and cultivate resilience, community connection, and hope even in the face of environmental uncertainty.
This training is ideal for clinicians, counselors, marriage and family therapists, and other helping professionals seeking to better understand and treat clients struggling with climate-related emotional distress. No prior experience with climate-focused therapy required.
OBJECTIVES:
Identify the emotional and psychological manifestations of eco-anxiety and climate grief and their impact on client well-being. Describe therapeutic frameworks and interventions to help clients process and manage climate-related distress. Implement strategies that foster resilience, empowerment, and emotional regulation in clients coping with environmental concerns.
About the Presenter
Dreya Blume (she/her) is a licensed clinical social worker, psychotherapist, author, and educator. Dreya began working in the mental health field in 2004 in southwest Virginia, where she spent almost two decades serving the local transgender community as a gender therapist. She recently moved to Durham, NC, where she focuses on offering continuing education training to therapists and coaching for private practice clinicians who want to expand their business uniquely. Dreya loves to write and is the author of several books, including, “The Tarot Activity Book: A Collection of Creative and Therapeutic Ideas for the Cards,” “Journaling the Tarot,” “Everyone Has a Story: Using the Hero’s Journey and Narrative Therapy to Reframe the Struggle of Mental Illness,” and “Tarot for Transformation: Using the Major Arcana to Discover Your Best Self and Create a Life Worth Living.” All of Dreya’s books (under her former name, Andy Matzner) are available here: https://dreyablume.com/books. Dreya is also passionate about teaching. Before becoming a mental health clinician, she spent many years teaching English as a Second Language in places such as Japan, Australia, Thailand, and Hawaii. Once in Virginia, Dreya worked as an adjunct professor for almost twenty years at Hollins University, teaching gender studies and sociology in their Master of Liberal Studies program. In addition, she spent twelve years teaching future social workers in the human services program at Virginia Western Community College. Learn more about Dreya on her website: https://dreyablume.com/.